Part 3: Use of Social Media to Promote Firm

Section 5: Marketing and Client Relations

Jul 22, 2015

As we have observed over the course of the past few surveys, advisors’ current use of social media to promote their practice continues to show meaningful increases year-over-year. However, between channels we note some slight differences. Most notably, advisors from the W/R channel are the most aggressive in their use of social media with 57% reporting that they use social media tools to promote their firms, but RIA and IBD channels also broadly use social media with responses of 53% and 48%, respectively.

We also asked the respondents who do not currently use social media whether they plan to do so in the future. Not surprisingly, the most popular response across all three channels is “not sure.” This likely reflects the continued challenges around both compliance and efficacy measurement. However, advisors from the IBD channels report being more likely to use social media in the future, with “yes” responses of 36% compared to 29% for both the W/R and RIA channels. This likely reflects that the IBD channel is currently a bit behind in its use of social media, relative to the other channels.